This season could be the last one Kim Delesoy’s daughter Jamie plays with her pee wee hockey team in Regina.

The Delesoys make the 45-minute drive from their home in the Village of McLean to practice in Regina because she loves the game. Jamie has been playing for three years in the female league in Regina and is the Shamrocks’ goaltender.

Kim isn’t 100 per cent sure what the coming hockey season will hold for Jamie because in June, the Saskatchewan Hockey Association board decided it would create subdivision boundaries for female hockey around Regina and Saskatoon. The boundaries, in effect, would prevent non-resident players from playing inside the cities. However, girls at the “Midget AAA level are still able to play anywhere in the province on any of the eight teams that they are successful in making and that includes Regina and Saskatoon,” according to an SHA memo.

For the Delesoys, there is a lingering uncertainty: if Jamie can’t play in Regina, whether or not she plays on a hockey team in Indian Head will depend on whether enough girls in the area want to play. Otherwise, she’ll likely play ringette.

“She’s tried boys’ hockey, and there’s nothing against the boys, the coaches there were fantastic. She’s just so super shy and loves the female hockey. If that turns out to be her only option to play — coed — she’ll be done hockey for good. It’s a little bit sad in our house because this is the only sport she’s ever actually played and liked, so we’re hoping she’ll be able to stay in the city or that there’ll be some other option,” Kim said.

She is the parent behind Play Like a Girl, which has been speaking out on social media about the SHA’s decision. Through Play Like a Girl, she’s started a petition asking the SHA to reverse its decision. It has more than 6,000 signatures.

“Honestly, I guess, everyone’s still reeling from the decision for them to reject all the proposals,” she said.

Sheila Thacyk, center, and Kim Delesoy, right, cheer on the Regina Shamrocks during a game at Jack Staples arena in Regina on Dec. 20, 2017.Michael Bell /
Regina Leader-Post

The proposals made by the Saskatoon Comets, Hockey Regina Female Committee, Lumsden/Bethune Minor Hockey and Prairie Storm Minor Hockey called on the SHA to reconsider the decision and create a committee to review female hockey in Saskatchewan, SHA general manager Kelly McClintock wrote in a memo sent to members on Nov. 21.

The commissioner of the Saskatoon Comets organization, Krispin Zaleschuk, said the changes to the geographic boundaries will affect its numbers next year, there won’t be as many girls in Saskatoon registered with the Comets.

“It’s going to affect our ability to tier our teams properly. We may end up having to reduce the number of teams at a certain given level, whether it be at the top level or the bottom level,” Zaleschuk said. There could be fewer players in certain age groups, but the Comets won’t know until girls register to play next June.

Zaleschuk said the suggestions included the formation of a committee that would include people directly involved with female hockey and having the SHA look at female hockey in Saskatchewan in general.

In the meantime, the Comets’ executive plans to discuss if it intends to take this further. They’ll mull over whether the executives want to keep pushing the SHA not to move ahead with the boundaries.

McClintock’s November memo included current registration numbers for girls outside of the Saskatoon and Regina regional boundaries registered to play in the cities. A total of 64 non-Saskatoon residents are registered to play in Saskatoon and 51 non-Regina residents are registered to play in Regina this season.

In an interview, McClintock said the board will not take the phase-in approach and that it did set out an 18-month window from April to start working under the new boundaries. He said the board made its decision last April because it wanted to stimulate the female minor associations around the two cities. The board views the geographic subdivisions as being similar to the ones in place in boys’ hockey.

“We’ve already seen some of the associations take initiative,” he said. According to McClintock’s memo, Hague, Delisle and Lumsden have started to organize female teams and others will be “undertaking initiatives to offer female programming beginning next year.”

McClintock told the StarPhoenix the SHA board didn’t meet with parents, but did consult with minor hockey associations.

“Our concern as an association looking at the province from a 50,000 foot level, you know, we’ve got lots of associations around the province that are getting into female programming more and more. We made some other decisions about it this year. We’ve got teams where we’ve never had teams before and it’s time for the associations around the two cities to look at offering female programming as well,” McClintock said.

The SHA has given the names of the players affected by the incoming geographic boundaries to associations near Saskatoon and Regina. In the new year, the SHA plans to look at both male and female hockey programs in the province with recommendations to come to the zone meetings in March.

In McClintock’s view the SHA has made decisions aimed at bolstering female minor hockey in rural areas, particularly in the North. For years, it tried to convince the North Saskatchewan Female Hockey League to change its tiering from midget AA, midget A and midget B or else it wouldn’t be sanctioned. The midget A and B mainly consisted of girls who were bantam and pee wee ages and McClintock said the SHA wanted the NSFHL to change the tiering to include midget AA, midget, bantam and pee wee.

Since the NSFHL changed its tiering, the number of teams in each tier has grown. There’s 10 teams in bantam, for example. And there are teams in locations where there were none before.

“We’re seeing growth and because we’ve now made those decisions, it’s given hope to a lot of our associations that, especially in the North, that were on a comparable level as what there is in the South, and it’s given our girls hope that ‘Hey, there’s girl leagues.’ Now, we’re starting to see more atom and novice girls teams being put together as well in rural Saskatchewan and areas around the two cities,” McClintock said.

This season, the SHA also denied releases to the Rosetown and Dodsland pee wee and atom teams to participate in the East Central Alberta Female Hockey League. Last season, the Rosetown Shooting Stars played in the pee wee division.

Teams from Hillmond, Turtleford, Meadow Lake and Pierceland also expressed interest in playing in the league, league president Dusty Ermel said.

“Why should they have to drive two and a half, three hours the other way?” Ermel asked. “That’s the conversation we’ve always wanted to have with SHA. Let the East Central Alberta Female Hockey League set boundaries, let’s set areas where we can allow these teams that are close to the border communities to continue to play hockey without having to travel far east into the interior of Saskatchewan to do this.”

But Blair Wingert, the coach of Rosetown’s pee wee team, said he fully supports the SHA’s decision not to let them go to the Alberta league this year. Last year, his team played in the ECAFHL after the SHA granted the them relief because there wasn’t a viable league in Saskatchewan for them to play in. He said this season there’s a viable league: the NSFHL.

Wingert is also supportive of what the SHA is trying to do, but said there may have been other ways it could have gone about it.

“For too long, rural communities have had girls play hockey up until pee wee or bantam and then when contact starts up, the minor hockey associations would simply grant the parents relief letters and basically leave it up to their parents to go find a place for their kids to play. And that’s why we saw lots of kids flocking to the larger centres that have girls’ programs. You never saw any of the rural communities establishing their own rural programs,” Wingert said.

By “closing the borders,” in a sense, Wingert said some of the minor hockey associations will be prompted to work together to develop their own programs.

The NSFHL includes teams from Rosetown, Nipawin, Melfort, Tisdale, Hague, Bruno and Turtleford. Wingert said it takes collaboration: half a dozen minor hockey associations are working together.

“It hasn’t been easy,” he said. The girls have been travelling 100 kilometres in some cases to get to practice twice a week, but they started out very young and they’ve got together once or twice a month, playing in one or two tournaments a season, he said.

“These girls got to see what hockey is really about,” he said, adding that it’s about camaraderie and teamwork.

“These girls, they became dedicated to the sport. Travelling an hour twice a week and then going on the road on the weekends wasn’t really a big deal for them.”

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